


Weighted Heart

by LysSerris



Series: Black Heart [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Bellamione Cult Ilvermorny Cup, Blood Magic, Discord: Bellamione Cult, F/F, Grey!Hermione, Kind of Blackcest, One Shot, Partial Mind Control, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Pureblood Hermione Granger, Soul Bond, runic magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 22:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20033284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LysSerris/pseuds/LysSerris
Summary: "You are a Black now, no matter how much you fight it," the wand tip moved to press harshly against Hermione’s temple. “And I’ll make you into one, even if it kills you."





	Weighted Heart

**Author's Note:**

> No edit (sorry for all the comma's), one shot for Black Heart, more me working through ideas. portions of this may or may not show up when i get around to actually writing that story.

** _Six Hours Later_ **

Without warning the door to Hermione’s fanciful cell opened with a crash that had the young witch jumping up off of the soft bed, eyes wide in alarm and hand reaching for a now nonexistent wand.

“Muddy, I’m home!” Bellatrix Black, still clad in the dress she’d worn during the ritual earlier that day, sauntered into the room with crooked wand in hand to drum the tip against her chin. Dark curls of black spilled out across her neck and shoulders to bob and bounce in time with her frantic energy. The grin plastered to her face was one of madness and beauty all intertwined, striking fear and no uncertain amount of something  _ else _ into her core.

“Well, I guess I can’t exactly call you Muddy anymore, can I? That’s just such a shame, it was growing on me so. Pet will do nicely I think, at least until I come up with something more fitting.” The woman’s smile filled in with too sharp teeth as she slammed the door closed behind herself with a lazy flick of her wrist.

“What did you do to me Lestrange?” Hermione refused to give ground to her captor, choosing instead to stand tall and defiant, eyes hard and fist clenched at her sides.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet? I would have thought you’d guess it right off, but, eh, more fool me I suppose. I’ll explain it in a moment,” the woman dropped her wand onto the bedside table with a clack, “Help me out of this dress, will you? It’s awfully warm this time of year and if I’m going to be cooped up in here explaining all this I’d prefer to be comfortable.”

Hermione could feel the compulsion beneath the words, the slick of some foreign magic crawl beneath her skin and into muscle and bone. The words continued to curl, twisting and turning its way around her core. It wasn’t a standard compulsion charm, nor was it like an Imperius, but seemed to be something deeply rooted in her chest instead of her head. Bellatrix turned her head to pierce Hermione with a stare when the young witch didn’t move fast enough to her liking, eyes dark and unreadable.

“Pet, over here,  _ now. _ Help me out of this dress.”

Without further prompting Hermione moved closer to the witch’s side and stepped behind the now disinterested woman as she picked at something beneath a nail. Her fingers ghosted over soft black fabric before finding a thin and impossibly small zipper near the top of the dress that ran to the middle of her spine.

_ ‘Do I really have to do this,’  _ she thought belatedly to herself, right before a stab of white pain behind her eye drove her forward.  _ ‘Yes.’ _

Her fingers took quickly to their task, grabbing hold of the thin metal and pulling down to reveal the spread of Bellatrix’s shoulders and back. A mess of scars and bruises so old they’d turned her skin dark were waiting for her eyes, fingers trailing the thin valley of her vertebra as they passed. She shivered, unsure of what had made her cold, as the thin garment pooled on the ground at Bellatrix’s feet. When she stepped back the witch continued staring out the window and out to the darkened Manor grounds, tall and rigid in only a pair of black panties and heels.

“Everything, Pet.”

“W-what?” Her mind balked at the statement, so sure it was that this wasn’t covered in the order.

“You heard me,” her voice turned low into a growl, “Everything.”

There was amusement in that voice, tinted as it was by impatience and impertinence, and Hermione swallowed dryly at it before steeling her compromised resolve and shimmying down the black cloth from her hips. When it dropped Bellatrix strode forward to leave the clothes and heels behind, turning towards Hermione and inciting a flush of heat to her skin as she casually sat on the bed.

“Good Pet. Now, sit. We’ve things to discuss.”

** _Four Weeks Later_ **

“Hurry up Pet, we’ve places to be,” Bellatrix slapped Hermione’s back, nearly sending her tumbling from her doubled up position.

“You didn’t,” Hermione shook and quivered from the violence she’d witnessed before the apparition, “You can’t just… They were innocent!”

“Innocence doesn’t matter to me, results do. Now hurry up and don’t wrinkle that robe, it cost me more than your childhood home was worth.”

Hermione sucked in great lungfuls of air as she pressed herself down to straighten the length of her black robes and dress, her heels sharply knocking against cobblestone as she moved to hurry after Bellatrix. With a final shake of her head, frizz free hair bobbing as she turned, Hermione caught up to the dark woman and stared at the looming sight of Black Manor.

It was a massive sight, crooked and leaning sideways in all its gothic glory

“What am I even doing here,” Hermione stepped up to stand next to Bellatrix’s shoulder as the witch undid the massive locks holding the front drive’s gate closed, “Wouldn’t your ancestors smite me on the spot?”

“Like I told you earlier Pet,” Bellatrix twisted the key in the lock, a clang of metal on metal rolling through the empty drive, “You’re a Black now, whether you like it or not there’s no going back. And we need to maintain these wards.”

“You don’t even live here,” Hermione’s skin warmed as Bellatrix wrapped an arm around her, “Why maintain it at all?”

“You’ve read the books CIssy gave you, I know you have so don’t even bother playing dumb. I don’t like dumb things, I’m liable to break them.” The witch looked up and down Hermione as they wandered forward towards the house at a languid pace, “Now, I need you to inventory which wards remain standing. Start in the center of the Manor, the Lodestone is in the basement. It’ll keep an etching of every alteration, and we need to know which have broke and which are salvageable.” Bellatrix pointed her towards a set of sloping cellar doors, “Get in. The only saving grace is that now that you’re here none of what still remains will go out. Thank the Dark Lord for small miracles.”

“Understood.”

Hermione set out towards the doors with a huff as she released her new ebony and dragon heartstring wand to fall easily between her fingers. She’d snapped her old wand in a fit of rage after finding it to no longer be bonded to her a few days ago. The ritual that Bellatrix had subjected her to had altered her core and blood enough to essentially make her a whole new person, one that her precious vinewood wand hadn’t gotten along with. 

She’d cursed her short temper at the time but since then had come to accept it. It was just one in a long list of things that was different now. She could only be thankful that it wasn’t that far off from what it’d been before. She’d always been one to prefer the nuclear option first, she was after all the first year who’d set fire to a teacher rather than simply put their attention on something else. Bellatrix had just smirked and praised her rather eccentric view on problem solving when she’d wheedled that story out of her.

With a sharp flick of her wand the doors were opened to reveal a set of stairs leading deep under the Manor, darkly lit and smelling of musty, stale air. The current wards slipped seamlessly over skin as she made her way downwards, like a soft caress or the weight of a good robe. At first, she’d been startled at how refreshing the feeling of the Black’s magic was to her, how quickly she’d come to accept whatever it was had been done to her soul. That feeling had faded as days passed until it felt so much like her own that she hardly even noticed it. Idle thoughts brought her questions about the nature of all that, whether it was part of the compulsion or the new blood flowing through her veins.

Questions for another day.

Her short steps rang out loudly as she made her way down the stairwell while sconces lining the walls brightening with a rush of air as flame filled them when she passed. In contrast to her immediate expectations the space was rather… homey. No dungeon in sight, no languishing prisoners chained to the walls. It was rather like any other Muggle basement. Furniture covered in sheets, junk in heaps and piles against the walls or hidden in bookshelves, old trunks and bedframes. Even an old tub made from cast iron and looking to weigh all of a ton. Less a magical household and more a hoarders dream.

Bellatrix hadn’t given her any idea of what she was actually looking for, settling instead for a name and a vague order that Hermione was compelled to complete even if she didn’t know how that was to be done. Wandering the hallways and open spaces for minutes on end eventually brought her to a corner of the space where the scar on her palm began itching and warming. The silver skin tugged slowly as she thrust it out in front of herself, letting the pull guide her around twists and turns. 

A few more minutes of wandering, and an increasing thrum that she knew would lead to a headache, led her towards a portion of the basement that left the hair on the backs of her arms and necks standing on edge. Static clung to her skin the deeper she went, her perception of the space changing as it brightened from no apparent source. Three rooms down, and she found what she was looking for.

A door, aged and splintered, stood sentinel in a single wall, bands of iron molded into the hinges and a handle in the shape of a jackdaw in flight. When she reached out for the knob the material bit back into her hand as her fingers closed around it, the sharp sting of something sharp piercing into her palm. With a hiss and a jerk her hand flew away from the now wet handle, the center of her palm pricked and welling with blood. A huff of indignation made its way up her throat when the door snapped open without her influence, air rushing into the space as though it had been vacuumed shut.

Hermione peered into the now open room, eyes widening as she walked forward. It was large, maybe the same size as Narcissa’s main sitting room, a bare stone floor carved out from white marble and inlaid with runes of all shapes and sizes. In the center of the empty space lay a large chunk of metallic looking rock that rose up high enough to meet her chest. It looked like a roughly shaped cylinder, taller than wide and standing upon a point embedded into the floor. Light from scones on the wall lit up the object with a metallic sheen, sparkling in the shifting firelight. As she approached it the scar upon her palm began to burn and heat with an inner fire, the muscle wriggling and clenching as it responded to the magic floating in the room. 

Her first assumption that it was a boulder seemed to be correct. Portions of it looked to have been pulled directly out of the ground while other sides seemed shaped or smoothed by human hands. All along it at uneven intervals were large iron nails hammered into the surface, nearly large enough to be railroad spikes. A hammer lay to the side, discarded and covered in a fine layer of dust, and Hermione could feel a shiver of something old wash over her the longer she stared. Each spike hummed with magic. Well, most of them. A few were dark and rusted where the others were clean and free from oxides, three faded to compare against the countless working ones that remained.

Hermione rolled her neck out before letting the Black’s magic flow over herself, her own magic mingling with the nails protruding from the Lodestone. It was breathtaking, like falling asleep beneath warm blankets and a comforting partner. Skin to skin, heat and featherlight touches. When the initial rush of making contact began to fade and settle she set about inspecting each position nailed into the stone. Each ward anchored to it was distinct, unique. It was a tether of information on who had been the one to anchor the ward, many people over many centuries, and what had been used to initiate the grafting. Namely, death.

Her hand jerked backwards in surprise once she felt it, a cadre of souls literally nailed down to the hunk of rock and metal as their essence powered the magic deep within. It was startling, shocking even, that someone had figured out a way to anchor magic so deeply and for so long, but a portion of her couldn’t bring itself to care. It wanted to swim forward to all those souls again, touch and prod until it pulled apart at the seams to float among multiple layers of magic.

Another portion of her was suddenly worried and up in arms at how familiar it had all felt, how similar her own magic had become. She knew what Bellatrix had done, or the gist of it at least, but it certainly didn’t feel like she was sharing a burden.

Her musings were cut short when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder to nearly startle her out of her own skin.

“Intoxicating, isn’t it?” Bellatrix released the hold she had and moved to stand behind her, “All that energy and power stored inside a hunk of rock.”

“It’s… It’s different,” she replied, not sure how much she understood, “What exactly is it?”

Bellatrix wrapped warm arms around her midsection, hand squeezing gently before she let them drift to Hermione’s hips. 

“It’s a Lodestone, Muggles know it as magnetite, but variations of the material are attracted to magic, they’re drawn to it. They suck it up, hold onto it, and then release over time. This one is ours.” Bellatrix nipped gently as the skin of Hermione’s neck before stepping off to the side, heading closer to the stone. Fingers hovered above nails as she walked a slow circle around it, the gap between flesh and iron a miniature aurora began to bloom, green and pearl colors mixing into all the many shades of a rainbow. 

“This is as much a part of me as it is a part of you. Each of the old Families have one, not all the same material, but all serve the same purpose. It takes two to keep it running smoothly, to balance it all out. Lose to many of the souls born under it and suddenly everything falls apart.”

“When I touched it I could feel-”

“The wards, yes. If I recall it correctly, that's why I sent you down here in the first place. Well, let’s have it, what did you find.” Bellatrix’s black eyes pierced her with a sudden blossoming interest, a little wide and unhinged but beautiful in the shimmering firelight.

“Three dead,” Hermione pointed to each one in turn, “But I don’t know what they do. I pulled back when I saw how they were anchored.”

“Well then hurry it up, jump in and tell me which they are. We’ve a need to hurry, Pet.”

Hermione reached forward again to let her fingers ghost over the downed wards, three nails covered in rust where all the others were clean and shining. When the pad of her finger touched down onto the metal a multitude of images and emotions flooded through her body and mind, each a signature of who and what they were for.

“Long range detection here,” she pointed it out to Bellatrix, “Animagus forced shift here,” she pointed again, “And a general fire retardant for the grounds.”

“Simple enough then. Nothing of any true importance. We’ll head back now then, get up with Scabior when he returns tomorrow, we’ll need three of his catches-”

“No! Absolutely not! I read them, I’m  _ not _ killing someone for them!”

Bellatrix stared at her with a blank look of confusion for nearly ten seconds before her face suddenly became overrun with anger. The woman’s lips formed a sneer, muscles tensing visibly as she moved closer.

“You don’t have a say in this Pet, your livelihood is at stake as much as my own, like it or not.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m willing to kill for it-”

“Oh save me the hypocrisy. You certainly seemed quite willing to kill Potter, you could have fought that order at any time. You always can, you’ll suffer and bleed for it and in the end you’ll die, but you  _ can _ fight it. So don’t get sanctimonious on me, your morals are already compromised. You’re a killer as much as I am.”

“I am nothing like-”

“Silence!”

Hermione’s mouth snapped shut with a click of teeth on teeth, breath and voice stilling in her throat.

“Kneel.”

Hermione knelt.

Bellatrix took her time as she advanced upon the now shivering witch, her steps stilted and fingers clenching down into her palms. Hermione felt fear, truly powerful fear, lance up through her spine only to fall back down and settle deep within her stomach.

“Cissy warned me that it would take time. For you to adjust,” her wand flicked out from its holster, “But I will be damned before I let trash like you ignore our sacred duties. You  _ are _ a Black now, no matter how much you fight it,” the wand tip moved to press harshly against Hermione’s temple, “Crucio.”

All at once her body lit up with pain, her muscles cramping and back arching as flesh was pulled from bone, was pulled from muscle.

“And I’ll make you into one,” Bellatrix spoke in a hushed whisper above the writhing body at her feet, “Even if it kills you.”

\---

Hermione startled out of unconsciousness with a gasp and flailing limbs, her body immediately trying to sit up. It did her no good as a pair of warm arms wrapped around her body tightened up to keep her within their grasp. A gentle shushing noise came from above as a pair of lips rested atop the crown of her head, soft and warm as her mind spun up in a whirl.

She could feel a vibration, a pressure, as something spun its way through her in gentle waves from behind. Her eyes were now fully open, and she took a moment to look around the empty room, her mind finally realizing where she was. Bellatrix was pressed up against the Lodestone with Hermione wedged comfortably onto her lap, arms wrapping around to hold her in place against her chest. 

There was a heat there, in between the body pressing comfortably against her skin and the warm pressure let off by the Lodestone behind them. Gentle hands and warm magic pressed their way into her skin and core while she gently drifted back towards a peaceful sleep. 

_ ‘Home.’ _

**Author's Note:**

> Like Bellamione? https://discord.gg/pcfMU4F come on in and join the server!


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